I bought the first "chapter" of the Bone game and wasn't impressed. For only $20 I wasn't expecting it to be very long, but I finished it in about an hour, and out of that there's hardly any gameplay at all, it's mostly branching conversations with a few very basic adventure game type puzzles and two dull action sequences. The best thing I can say about the game is that the story was kept very faithful to the comic. I hope they have better things in store for their Sam & Max game.
It's obvious that great effort was made to cut out the more tedious elements present in previous mmorpgs...
1) So what's up with the faction quests? I understand that faction with the Thorium Brotherhood/Furbolgs/ect. needs to be difficult since it gives you access to some very nice tradeskill recipes, but the current method of raising faction seems to be about as dull and repetitive as you could make them. Argent Dawn's not so bad, since it raises by fighting in Stratholm and Scholomance, the the others are just insanely boring.
2) Why to warlocks still have to farm shards a level 60? It's not like a warlock becomes uber when he's got a bag full of shards, a warlock needs to have a bunch of shards just to compete on the same level as other classes. The shard bag that's in development doesn't seem like it'll solve the problem, it just means a longer farming session before hand. Right now I have to start farming half an hour before my guild heads into MC just so that I don't run out, not exactly what I'd call "fun", and I don't see how it balances the class.
Not everyone can drive a tank, you have to pick a specific class in order to use one. Also the "iron sights" system they use for aiming works pretty well (you use the actual sights on the gun model to aim rather than floating crosshairs). Try playing the game instead of talking out of your ass...
They really should have allowed for a stand-alone installation of HL2 for those who bought the boxed version (not CS:Source mind you, just HL2). I purchased the silver package off steam and the entire process worked perfectly, I'm very impressed with the technology. Unfortunatly the authentication seems to be causing nothing but trouble for friends and family members who picked up the store-bought version (overloaded servers, university firewall issues, etc). They shouldn't have to connect to the internet to play a single player game, plain and simple.
I actually prefer scanlations to officially translated manga most of the time since North American publishers tend to censor their releases. Usually it's minor stuff like nudity, but still I prefer to read the original work in it's entirety.
By the time games start to take advantage of S3.0 NV's current line of 3.0 cards will be old technology. Both ATI and NV seem to have come out with strong offerings this round so for current games either will be great, but if you're buying one of NV's cards just for the 3.0 thinking that you'll be all set once true S3.0 games start showing up you're going to be disappointed. Buy for games coming out in the next year not for stuff that won't be out till late 2005/2006, you're just going to end up having to upgrade anyway.
Well look at it this way: Why would you want to replicate a McDonald's hamburger when countless amature chefs will have made the molecular blueprints for their own takes on the perfect burger available for free. I for one can't wait to take a bite out of my first open source cheese-burger.
I've been playing the beta and it's not a gank fest. If you pk someone who doesn't fight back you turn red and pretty much ruin your character (it's possible to work the karma off but if you've committed multiple pks you usually won't live long enough to do so). All my encounters with red named players so far have involved watching them run for their lives while being chased by a mob of other players. Reds tend to be pretty rare.
Other than that though the game is a complete flop. You may not be able to get away with pking, but griefing is another matter. Another player can follow you around stealing your kills and otherwise harassing you but you can't kill him for fear of going red.
The level grind is worse than any other game I've played, and the money requirements to keep your equipment up to date is steep. This might not be a problem if it weren't for the fact that the real conetent of the game (the guild PVP system) exists at the high end, but to get there you have to farm/grind your way through the boring and poorly developed PVE content.
Exploits, scamming and boting seem rampant, the GMs claim they're banning people, but I still see the same bots week after week.
There's no variety in the characters either, everyone has the same equipment at any given level, and the base models are severely limited, so it's attack of the clones.
They didn't even change the chat window to support english text, the word wrap often breaks words in two, making it annoying to read.
I'm sure it'll find an audience with those who actually seem to like the grind, but I can't see it becoming a major hit in the US.
Don't believe a word of it. The Savage2000 was supposed to have Hardware T&L but at release it wasn't enabled and S3 claimed it would be activated shortly in an updated version of thier drivers. This went on for about 6 months before it slipped out that the T&L engine was actually flawed and non-functional at the hardware level and would never be useable. Apparently they even knew about the design flaw from the start but decided to hush it up so that they could unload the cards.
Yes, anyone who likes Evangelion and Lain NEEDS to check out FLCL the minute it's released in North America (this fall I think). I watched all six episodes (fansubbed) in one sitting and just walked around stammering to myself for the next couple of days.
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I bought the first "chapter" of the Bone game and wasn't impressed. For only $20 I wasn't expecting it to be very long, but I finished it in about an hour, and out of that there's hardly any gameplay at all, it's mostly branching conversations with a few very basic adventure game type puzzles and two dull action sequences. The best thing I can say about the game is that the story was kept very faithful to the comic. I hope they have better things in store for their Sam & Max game.
2 question on the same subject:
It's obvious that great effort was made to cut out the more tedious elements present in previous mmorpgs...
1)
So what's up with the faction quests? I understand that faction with the Thorium Brotherhood/Furbolgs/ect. needs to be difficult since it gives you access to some very nice tradeskill recipes, but the current method of raising faction seems to be about as dull and repetitive as you could make them. Argent Dawn's not so bad, since it raises by fighting in Stratholm and Scholomance, the the others are just insanely boring.
2)
Why to warlocks still have to farm shards a level 60? It's not like a warlock becomes uber when he's got a bag full of shards, a warlock needs to have a bunch of shards just to compete on the same level as other classes. The shard bag that's in development doesn't seem like it'll solve the problem, it just means a longer farming session before hand. Right now I have to start farming half an hour before my guild heads into MC just so that I don't run out, not exactly what I'd call "fun", and I don't see how it balances the class.
Not everyone can drive a tank, you have to pick a specific class in order to use one. Also the "iron sights" system they use for aiming works pretty well (you use the actual sights on the gun model to aim rather than floating crosshairs). Try playing the game instead of talking out of your ass...
That's funny, because when I tried EQ2, the cutesy voice acting gave me a teddy ruxpin flash-back.
They really should have allowed for a stand-alone installation of HL2 for those who bought the boxed version (not CS:Source mind you, just HL2). I purchased the silver package off steam and the entire process worked perfectly, I'm very impressed with the technology. Unfortunatly the authentication seems to be causing nothing but trouble for friends and family members who picked up the store-bought version (overloaded servers, university firewall issues, etc). They shouldn't have to connect to the internet to play a single player game, plain and simple.
One step closer to v7 ^_^
Actually "the ones who created the original crack addiction" are now all working on Vanguard: Saga of Heroes over at Sigil Games
I actually prefer scanlations to officially translated manga most of the time since North American publishers tend to censor their releases. Usually it's minor stuff like nudity, but still I prefer to read the original work in it's entirety.
By the time games start to take advantage of S3.0 NV's current line of 3.0 cards will be old technology. Both ATI and NV seem to have come out with strong offerings this round so for current games either will be great, but if you're buying one of NV's cards just for the 3.0 thinking that you'll be all set once true S3.0 games start showing up you're going to be disappointed. Buy for games coming out in the next year not for stuff that won't be out till late 2005/2006, you're just going to end up having to upgrade anyway.
Well look at it this way: Why would you want to replicate a McDonald's hamburger when countless amature chefs will have made the molecular blueprints for their own takes on the perfect burger available for free. I for one can't wait to take a bite out of my first open source cheese-burger.
Just a note concerning Lineage 2:
I've been playing the beta and it's not a gank fest. If you pk someone who doesn't fight back you turn red and pretty much ruin your character (it's possible to work the karma off but if you've committed multiple pks you usually won't live long enough to do so). All my encounters with red named players so far have involved watching them run for their lives while being chased by a mob of other players. Reds tend to be pretty rare.
Other than that though the game is a complete flop. You may not be able to get away with pking, but griefing is another matter. Another player can follow you around stealing your kills and otherwise harassing you but you can't kill him for fear of going red.
The level grind is worse than any other game I've played, and the money requirements to keep your equipment up to date is steep. This might not be a problem if it weren't for the fact that the real conetent of the game (the guild PVP system) exists at the high end, but to get there you have to farm/grind your way through the boring and poorly developed PVE content.
Exploits, scamming and boting seem rampant, the GMs claim they're banning people, but I still see the same bots week after week.
There's no variety in the characters either, everyone has the same equipment at any given level, and the base models are severely limited, so it's attack of the clones.
They didn't even change the chat window to support english text, the word wrap often breaks words in two, making it annoying to read.
I'm sure it'll find an audience with those who actually seem to like the grind, but I can't see it becoming a major hit in the US.
Don't believe a word of it. The Savage2000 was supposed to have Hardware T&L but at release it wasn't enabled and S3 claimed it would be activated shortly in an updated version of thier drivers. This went on for about 6 months before it slipped out that the T&L engine was actually flawed and non-functional at the hardware level and would never be useable. Apparently they even knew about the design flaw from the start but decided to hush it up so that they could unload the cards.
Yes, anyone who likes Evangelion and Lain NEEDS to check out FLCL the minute it's released in North America (this fall I think). I watched all six episodes (fansubbed) in one sitting and just walked around stammering to myself for the next couple of days.